A Cloud-Based Framework for Verifiable Privacy-Preserving Spectrum Auction

Abstract Spectrum auction is one of the most effective ways to achieve dynamic spectrum allocation in cognitive radio networks, and it provides one effective way to manage the spectrum demands of IoT devices with limited resources. Most spectrum auctions focus on protecting bidder privacy and achieving excellent social efficiency, but few tackles the verification of auction results that are controlled by the auctioneer. In this paper, we propose a cloud-based framework for verifiable privacy-preserving spectrum auctions. Our framework adopts a modified AFGH re-encryption algorithm that achieves both bid privacy protection and auction results verification at the same time. The cloud server helps to compute auction results based on homomorphic encryption, and an auctioneer decrypts the encrypted data from the server to obtain auction results. Meanwhile, the property of re-encryption makes it possible for any bidder to verify the auction results without compromising other bidders’ privacy.